In Life’s Too Short, Famous Dwarf Tangles With Ricky Gervais

Warwick Davis, star of Life's Too Short, tries to maintain an upbeat veneer as he looks for work at the tail end of a showbiz career that included roles in Star Wars and the Harry Potter movies.

On the strength of his fierce intelligence, Peter Dinklage excelled as Tyrion Lannister in HBO'sGame of Thronesadaptation (returning April 1). Dinklage won a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor trophy for that performance, nine years after wowing audiences in The Station Agent.

David Lynch's favorite little person, Michael J. Anderson, appeared in Mullholland Drive after blowing TV viewers' minds by speaking backward in Twin Peaks as the Man From Another Place. Anderson more recently played Samson (pictured above), the dapper boss of a Depression-era circus troupe possessed with mystical powers, in HBO's Carnivale.

Verne Troyer benefited in 1999 from a brilliant casting move on the part of Austin Powers star-creator Mike Myers. As Dr. Evil's "Mini Me," Troyer sang, danced and took pinkie-finger gestures to new heights inThe Spy Who Shagged Meand Goldmember.

Zelda Rubinstein creeped out horror fans starting in 1982 when she took on the recurring role of Tangina in the Poltergeist movies.

In Time Bandits, David Rappaport made one of the more spectacular entrances in fantasy film history when he and five other dwarves burst from the closet of an adventurous boy's bedroom. Rappaport dominated the screen in Terry Gilliam's 1981 fantasy epic as Randall, the self-appointed leader of time-traveling thieves.

Kenny Baker provided the precise motor function for R2-D2, sci-fi filmdom's most famous droid, in the first three Star Wars movies, starting in 1977. He took on the additional role of Paploo in Return of the Jedi.Image courtesy Kennybaker.com

Karl Slover (right) charmed audiences as one of 124 little people who played munchkins in 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. Slover died last year at age 93.

Tod Browning's unsettling 1932 drama Freaks cast the German-born Harry Earles as a midget circus leader who falls in love with a taller woman. Three of Earles' six siblings were also dwarfs; all four appeared in The Wizard of Oz.

Yes he’s a dwarf, but the fictionalized version of Warwick Davis is also a vain, self-delusional, preening egotist beset by an endless succession of humiliating social encounters.

He’s the perfect antihero for Ricky Gervais’ new fake documentary comedy series Life’s Too Short, which debuts at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on HBO. In the show, shaky cameras follow Davis around London as he desperately reminds prospective employers and complete strangers that he played an ewok in Return of the Jedi, appeared in Harry Potter movies and starred in the George Lucas-produced bomb Willow.

Like Gervais’ delusional David Brent in The Office, Davis tries and invariably fails to win friends and influence people. Life’s Too Short treads a tricky line by simultaneously mocking and celebrating a small man’s offbeat charisma.

“It’s not a half an hour of, ‘Isn’t it funny that he’s so short!'” Gervais said, describing the show to reporters last month during a Television Critics Association panel discussion. “It isn’t that at all. He’s got small-man complex. It’s nothing to do with his height per se. It’s about his aims. It’s about his ambition. There’s a difference between a show that exploits and a show that ridicules exploitation, and we’re clearly in the second camp.”

With its three-dimensionally flawed protagonist and contemporary setting, Life’s Too Short, co-created by Gervais and his frequent comedic conspirator Stephen Merchant, marks an empowering break from the past. Especially in sci-fi and fantasy realms, dwarves historically serve as visual shorthand for “otherworldly” — David Lynch spelled it out in his surreal TV series Twin Peaks by naming dwarf Michael J. Anderson’s character “The Man From Another Place.” The Wizard of Oz transported viewers to another time and place from the moment Munchkins made their entrance, and what are hobbits if not little people writ large?

But Hollywood is starting to move beyond its reliance on using little people for novelty effect. In Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage plays witty, whoring conniver Tyrion Lannister with such fierce intelligence that the character’s physical stature becomes far less interesting than his machinations.

Sure, size matters, but projects like Life’s Too Short and Game of Thrones point toward a more expansive storytelling role for diminutive actors — provided they have big talent.

Check the gallery for a short list of the most magnetic little people in fantasy and sci-fi history, and read on for a longer look at the first two episodes of Life’s Too Short.

Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.

Sneak Peek at Life’s Too Short

Episode 1 loads up on not-particularly-funny exposition: Davis’ wife is kicking him out of the house. Gervais and Merchant, having cast Davis in their Extras series, now consider the unemployed actor a pest and place the buzzer to their office at a height they know he can’t reach. To top it off, Davis owes a huge tax bill.

Episode 2 gets laughs when Davis tutors Johnny Depp on how to get struck by lightning, dwarf-style. Later, while selling autographed photos at a sci-fi convention, Davis gets invited to a wedding. When he shows up in street clothes, the groom, infuriated that he did not wear an ewok costume, forces the actor to dress up as a bear. Davis hops onto a table and gives an insulting toast that makes the bride weep.